I did very badly at school. My headmaster thought I was   36  and when I was 14 he said, “You’re never going to be   37  but a failure.” After five years of   38  jobs, I fell in love with a very nice middle-class girl. It was the beatific   39  that could have happened to me. I  40  I wanted to do something positive (积极地) with my life because I wanted to prove to  41  that what people said about me was   42 . Especially her mother, who had said to me, “Let’s   43  it, you’ve failed at everything you’ve ever done.” So I tried hard with my   44  and went to college. My first novel   45   while I was at college. After college I taught during the   46  in high schools and attended evening classes at London University, where I got a   47  in history. I became a lecturer at a college and was thinking of   48  that job to write full time   49  I was offered a part-time job at Leeds University. I began to feel proud of myself —   50  was a working-class boy who’d   51  school early, now teaching at the university. My writing career (职业) took off when I discovered my own style. Now I’m rich and   52 , have been on TV, and met lots of film stars.   53  what does it mean? I   54  wish all the people that have put me down had   55 : “I believe in you. You’ll succeed.”

1.                A．bright          B．useless         C．simple    D．hopeful

2.                A．something       B．anything        C．everything D．nothing

3.                A．low            B．good           C．poor D．useful

4.                A．support        B．happiness       C．surprise  D．thing

5.                A．admitted        B．decided        C．planned  D．told

6.                A．me            B．them           C．her  D．it

7.                A．stupid          B．right           C．wrong    D．faulty

8.                A．see            B．know           C．understand    D．face

9.                A．experiment     B．practice        C．writing   D．composition

10.               A．came on        B．came in        C．came back D．came out

11.               A．day            B．night           C．month D．year

12.               A．graduation      B．pass           C．degree    D．success

13.               A．giving in        B．giving back      C．giving out  D．giving up

14.               A．while          B．if             C．or    D．when

15.               A．there          B．it             C．here  D．that

16.               A．left            B．attended       C．changed   D．graduated

17.               A．tired           B．calm           C．nervous .  D．famous

18.               A．And           B．But            C．However  D．Well

19.               A．so             B．exactly         C．just   D．very

20.               A．said           B．praised         C．answered  D．advised

This brief book is aimed at high school students, but speaks to anyone learning at any stage of life．
Its formal, serious style closely matches its content, a school-masterly book on schooling．The author, W．H．Armstrong, starts with the basics: reading and writing．In his opinion, reading doesn’t just mean recognizing each word on the page; it means taking in the information, digesting it and incorporating it into oneself just as digests a sandwich and makes it a part of himself．The goal is to bring the information back to life, not just to treat it as dead facts on paper from dead trees．Reading and writing cannot be completely separated from each other; in fact, the aim of reading is to express the information you have got from the text．I’ve seen it again and again: someone who can’t express an idea after reading a text is just as ineffective as someone who hasn’t read it at all．
Only a third of the book remains after that discussion, which Armstrong devotes to specific tips for studying languages, math, science and history．He generally handles these topics thoroughly(透彻地) and equally, except for some weakness in the science and math sections and a bit too much passion(激情) regarding history．Well, he was a history teacher — if conveyed only a tenth of his passion to his students, that was a hundred times more than my history teachers ever got across．To my disappointment, in this part of the book he ignores the arts．As a matter of fact, they demand all the concentration and study that math and science do, though the study differs slightly in kind．Although it’s commonly believed that the arts can only be naturally acquired, actually, learning the arts is no more natural than learning French or mathematics．
My other comment is that the text aged．The first edition apparently dates to the 1960s — none of the references(参考文献)seem newer than the late 1950s．As a result, the discussion misses the entire computer age．
These are small points, though, and don’t affect the main discussion．I recommend it to any student and any teacher, including the self-taught student．
【小题1】According to Armstrong, the goal of reading is to________．

Read the following passage. Answer the questions according to the information given in the passage and the required words limit. Write your answers on your answer sheet.

Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart（购物手推车）. They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who it was that invented them.

Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging（吃力地携带） groceries around in baskets they had to carry.

One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.

On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.

But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.

After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied.

But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony（假冒的） customers.

As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come—those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.

Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart.

81. What do the underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to?（No more than 3 words）

82. What was the purpose of Goldman’s invention? （No more than 8 words）

83. Why was Goldman disappointed at first? （No more than 8 words）

84. Why did Goldman hire people to push carts around his market? （No more than 10 words）

　　Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experiences? Strangely enough, the answer to both these questions is yes. To some extent our intelligence is given us at birth, and no amount of special education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of a person's intelligence are fixed at birth, but whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

　　It is easy to show that intelligence is to some extent something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be in intelligence. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random(随机地) from the population,it is likely that their degrees of intelligence will be completely different. If on the other hand we take two identical (完全相同的) twins they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth.

　　Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth playsa part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all, are likely to have similar degrees of intelligence.

Which of these sentences best describes the writer’s point in Para. 1?

　　A. To some extent, intelligence is given at birth.

　　B. Intelligence is developed by the environment.

　　C. Some people are born clever and others born stupid.

　　D. Intelligence is fixed at birth, but is developed by the environment.

It is suggested in this passage that_______.

　　A. unrelated people are not likely to have different intelligence

　　B. close relations usually have similar intelligence

　　C. the closer the blood relationship between people, the more different they are likely

　 　　to be in intelligence

　　D. people who live in close contact with each other are not likely to have similar degrees

　 　　of intelligence

In Para. 1, the word "surroundings" means_______.

　　A. intelligence 　　　　　B. life

　　C. environments 　　　　　D. housing

The best title for this article would be_______.

　　A. On Intelligence

　　B. What Intelligence Means

　　C. We are Born with Intelligence

　　D. Environment Plays a Part in Developing Intelligence

Read the following passage. Answer the questions according to the information given in the passage and the required words limit. Write your answers on your answer sheet.
Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart(购物手推车). They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who it was that invented them.
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging(吃力地携带) groceries around in baskets they had to carry.
One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.
But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.
After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied.
But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To end this, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony(假冒的)customers.
As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come—those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.
Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart.
【小题1】What do the underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to ? ( no more than 3 words)
【小题2】What was the purpose of Goldman’s invention? (no more than 8 words)
【小题3】Why was Goldman disappointed at first? (no more than 6 words)
【小题4】Why did Goldman hire people to push carts around his market? (no more than 10 words)